Print
Word
PDF
|
The Sun Also Rises Chapter 17
Jake finds Edna, Mike, and Bill outside a bar. They got thrown out for fighting; some people Mike owed money to were there, and a fight broke out. Bill stood up for Mike, and got in a scuffle too. Jake takes them all to a café. Cohn shows up, looking for Brett. He can't find her, and he knows she was last with Jake. Cohn is standing up, ready for a fight. Jake tells him he doesn't know where Brett is, but Mike does. He tells Cohn that Brett and Romero went off together. Cohn calls Jake a pimp, and Jake swings at him. Cohn ducks, then hits Jake a couple times, knocking his friend out. Cohn also knocks Mike to the ground. When Jake comes to, Cohn is gone. Mike complains about Cohn, and Edna asks Mike if he's really a bankrupt. Yes, he's so broke he borrowed money from Montoya tonight. Jake is angry Mike would misuse his friend that way. Jake goes back to the hotel, alone.
Jake's walk to the hotel is surreal. Everything looks new to him. He remembers coming home once from a football game. The game was in another town, and he had been kicked in the head during the game. Everything about his hometown had felt new to him, walking and holding his suitcase full of football equipment. As Jake crosses the square everything feels new like that, and he's carrying a phantom suitcase with him. He walks up to his room, and Bill asks Jake to go see Cohn, who is not doing well. Reluctantly Jake goes, taking his phantom suitcase with him. He won't let Cohn call him Jake. Cohn is crying, and asks for forgiveness. He tells Jake how awful things are, and how much pain Brett has caused him. A terrible friend, Cohn doesn't realize Jake has been through hell, too, and acted much the better man. Still confused from the concussion, Jake really wants to take a bath. He is barely listening to Cohn. Cohn insists on shaking hands with Jake before he goes. Cohn is leaving in the morning. Jake finds a tub and tries to take a bath, but there is no water. He can't get clean, so he goes down to his room and sleeps.
Jake wakes the next morning, and goes looking for Bill and Edna. He promised to take Edna to see the bulls run through the street. There is a fence set up along the route, and Jake watches from there because there is not enough time to reach the bull-ring. Two drunks wander into the path of the bulls, hoping to be hit. The police pull them out. One man from the crowd is speared by the bull's horns. The bull waves the man's body in the air before dropping him. The man lays still on the street.
Jake goes to a café for some breakfast. The waiter asks if anything happened during the running. Jake tells him about the man who was gored. He shows him where the horn hit. The waiter is disgusted that people will die just for a sport. To him, it is ridiculous. Two men walk by, and yell out that the man is dead. His name was Vicente Girones, and he came to the festival every year. He had a wife and children, who have to come to Pamplona to get his body. That afternoon, Romero kills the bull that killed Girones. It is a tradition to cut the ear off a defeated bull, and Romero gives the bull's ear to Brett. When she leaves the Pamplona she forgets the ear, which she had stuffed in the back of a dresser drawer.
Jake goes back to the hotel to lay down. Bill and Mike come in and tell Jake about the morning show. About twenty people were hurt, and several men kept running into the ring, hoping to be gored. The three have a couple of beers, and Jake learns what happened last night. After Cohn knocked Jake out, he went to find Romero and Brett. Cohn, who was a prize-winning boxer in college, beat Romero up badly. He would get knocked down, then get half-way up, and get knocked down again. Cohn wanted to take Brett away, but she wanted nothing to do with him. Cohn started to cry, and tried to shake hands with Romero. When he leaned down, Romero socked him. Romero told him to leave in the morning, or else. Brett stayed, and is looking after the badly beaten Romero. Mike feels awful, having his fiancé off with Romero, but he can't leave Brett.
Topic Tracking: Gender 15
Topic Tracking: Anti-Semitism 11
Mike thinks Brett deserves a little happiness, since her husband, Ashley, went crazy after the war, and used to threaten to kill her. Mike decides to go to bed. Jake mentions to Bill that someone was killed in the street, but Bill is indifferent.
